Why I Hope You Fail!

“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” - Samuel Beckett

This quote has been my (Ben’s) guiding light and daily mantra during our bus build. Brandi and I are total noobs when it comes to most everything related to building a tiny home in a school bus - and that’s ok! (Right? Right!) As we go through the process of creating new things that will become integral parts of our little home, we make mistakes. For myself especially, the psychic weight of making mistakes triggers a lot of unwanted negative feelings. I have always had a tendency to be my own harshest critic; these feelings of self-doubt often bloom into a wholly debilitating sense of imposter syndrome.

Our friend Spud Marshall recently wrote an amazing book titled “Designing Creative Communities” that really helped frame imposter syndrome in a whole new light for me. In his book, he reframes “imposter syndrome” as the “What’s Worth Doing Signal.” His rationale for this is as follows: “When you experience imposter syndrome, it signals that you’ve stumbled upon an idea that means something to you…. If you didn’t care about the idea and it wasn’t something that pushed you outside your comfort zone, you wouldn’t experience imposter syndrome.” Imposter syndrome means you’ve found an idea worth pursuing! This reframing has been so helpful in managing the many ups and downs of building out a skoolie!

For most of my life, I would have given up as soon as those feelings began their assault upon my psyche. “I’m not skilled enough”, I’d say. “You aren’t capable of this”, whispered my fears.

No more! I refuse to cow down to the weight of my fears any longer. We have made, are making, and will make plenty of mistakes throughout the course of our bus build. And you know what? I hope we do! We have learned SO much from our experiences so far, and we can’t wait to see what new skills and knowledge await us during our build. In the spirit of Samuel Beckett, we will try again, fail again, learn new skills, and fail better the next time!

Brandi and I hope that you will join us in embracing this growth mindset for whatever projects, hobbies, and endeavors that you have going on in your life.

Let us know in the comments what you are working on and how you navigate the challenges that come up during the process!

Have a great week y’all, see you next Sunday!